Notes On Video

DIY Indie Air Cannons | Realm Pictures | Vimeo Very cool little tutorial video showing how to create a practical effect explosion with an inexpensive air canon. They are also offering some other tutorials: For a tutorial on how to create your own DIY compressed air cannon like the one shown in the video, along with 9 other action tutorials, skip along to our KickStarter page and pick up the Indie Action Pack! The Ultimate Guide to a Camera Assistant’s Toolkit | Evan Luzi | The Black And Blue Another interesting article at The Black And Blue about putting together a toolkit: For me, I started out working heavily with the RED One on feature films. As such, my initial toolbag purchase was catered towards that kind of work. Nowadays I have been working a lot on commercials that use DSLR’s. Many of the tools I had acquired to work with the RED don’t have functions while shooting with a DSLR. On the flipside, many of the basic tools I have work in both types of gigs. Build A Jib F...

When You Find Me – Awesome Canon C300 / 5D Short Film | Paul Joy | Blog Canon had a competition where they invted people to submit photographs and Ron Howard would shoot a movie based on those pictures. Originally the movie was supposed to be shot on DSLRs, but evidently mush of it was shot on the C300 . You can see it on the web at YouTube: Project Imagin8ion I’ve not seen any details from Canon confirming that camera that were used on the film but it’s widely reported that a prototype of the Canon C300 was the main camera with some HDSLR’s being used as well. I’ll update this post when more info comes to light. “Sugared Art”, a new short film on the Sony FS100 | Philip Bloom | Blog Sony hired Philip for this project. You can read about it, and see some BTS footage, though Philip notes he was'nt a very happy camper because he'd put his back out the day before: Gear wise, obviously the FS100 and Zeiss ZF macro lenses 50mm and 100mm. The Zeiss ZF 50mm and 85mm F1.4 too. ...

14 New Cameras in one year (Part One) | Philip Johnston | HD Warrior The first part of a look back at 14 interesting cameras that were announced this year: I decided to take the F3 through to Edinburgh one cold January evening to film some low light footage and I was astounded at the footage I brought back, this was indeed the king of low light filming. Stage 4 - Reservations are now Open | Jarred Land | RedUser Order an EPIC now and save! Given the price increase coming in the new year, We are opening up EPIC Stage 4 for deposits today so everyone interested in stage 4 can lock into 2011 Pricing. We have a few Stage 2 orders to still mop up, so Stage 4 will not start shipping until those have been completed and the process of Stage 3/3.5 has begun . Since Stage 3 and 3.5 have the opportunity to be a lengthy processes ( sending in cameras, inspected, etc. ) Stage 4 orders and Stage 3/3.5 will be shipping in the same time frame.. with Stage 3/3.5 orders given shipping priority...

Vancouver, British Columbia, December 15, 2011 — Singular Software, a developer of workflow automation applications for video production, is pleased to announce that the PluralEyes for Apple Final Cut Pro X Public Beta is now available. The multi-award winning PluralEyes technology works alongside Final Cut Pro to instantly sync multi-camera video and audio tracks; saving hours of tedious, manual syncing during post. "We have a large PluralEyes for Final Cut Pro user base, so it was imperative that we added support for the latest release," says Bruce Sharpe, CEO of Singular Software. "Many of our PluralEyes for Final Cut Pro users employ multi-camera and dual-system audio workflows...relying heavily on PluralEyes to facilitate the media sync. Whether editing with Final Cut Pro version 7 or X, we want to ensure our customers enjoy all of the same advanced synchronization capabilities that PluralEyes has to offer. Final Cut Pro X editors can download the ne...

Sony has released a firmware update for several NEX series cameras: the NEX-3, NEX-5, NEX-C3 cameras, NEX-VG10 Handycam Camcorder and the Sony NEX-FS100U . Firmware update 2.0v specifically adds support for the LA-EA2  [$333.05] translucent mirror Lens Mount Adapter In these cases, the new firmware provides compatibility with the recently launched LA-EA2 translucent mirror Lens Mount Adapter. Prior to this firmware update, the LA-EA2 only worked with the αNEX-5N , NEX-7 and NEX-VG20. We know owners of the previous models were eagerly asking for compatibility to enjoy phase detect autofocus when using one of Sony’s A-mount lenses. I can't find what it does for the NEX-FS100U (whether this adds the international frame rate support they were promising, though I doubt it) but it does add the focus peaking feature to the NEX-VG10 and the other NEX still cameras. There don't appear to be any other changes. αNEX Cameras:New Firmware Enables Translucent Mirror Adapter Compat...

Milpitas, USA - December 15, 2011 - Blackmagic Design today announced DaVinci Resolve 8.2 for Microsoft Windows™ public beta is now available for download. D aVinci Resolve for Windows public beta is available in both the full featured DaVinci Resolve 8.2 and free DaVinci Resolve Lite versions. The DaVinci Resolve 8.2 for Windows license is included with the Mac OS X version, so all current Mac OS X customers automatically get a license for the Windows version, and can download it now to use in their facility. Read rest of the: Press Release

First look of Canon C-300 | Paul Steinberg | Vimeo C-300 with Directors Commentary Paul was lucky enough to borrow a C300 from Canon Canada for a weekend and did some shooting with it. The two clips he has posted are essentially the same, but the second one has a commentary track added. A couple sensitivity shots at the end of the video including a 20,000 ISO shot. Details for my fellow nerds; Camera was left in 5400K, Canon Cinema mode | 50Mb/s Lenses: 15mm f/2.8 fisheye, 17-35 f/2.8, 24-70 f/2.8, 70-200 f/2.8, 300 f/2.8 DSLR Lighting techniques from Eve Hazelton | Eve Hazelton | Philip Bloom Blog Eve Hazelton, DP of the Underwater Realm , provides an introductory lighting tutorial: First off – don’t just point a light at your subject and hope that’s enough. You are painting with light here, be a little more subtle! There are a number of problems with this shot – but first off we are going to tackle the lack of contrast between myself and ...

F65: Hands On Review | Steve Marshall | FearSomeSteve Despite initial skepticism about Sony's past offerings, Steve seems impressed by what he saw of the F65 at a recent demo event: Only time will tell but I think the F65 is going to catch on big time. It’s workflows will appeal to TV shows and feature films alike. It’s price point is low enough to attract a number of owner-operators, albeit not as many as RED. The 8k sensor at the heart of it seems to produce really good, clear images (from what I’ve seen). They definitely have some traction in the true 4k argument. I’d really like to see Epic and F65 footage side by side. I’m sure we’ll be seeing some comparison tests in the new year. Canon EOS C300 at BBC Scotland…First Impressions | Philip Jonhston | HD Warrior Philip's impressions of the C300 after seeing it at a demo event: We also had a chance to see the iPad working with the C300 now here is my dilemma, it looks the business but has a small delay in transmissi...

The link in yesterday's post was botched, and also the price has dropped another $40 ( so just as well you didn't buy it yesterday! ) but B & H is currently selling the  Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital Camera (Body Only)   at $1,999.95. (Note: this site is a B&H affiliate .) Will it drop further? Does this mean a 5D Mark III is coming soon? I don't know! I doubt it means the Mark III will be announced for CES, but it seems likely that something will appear next year...surely?

Looks like the fun just continues next month. Rule Boston Camera is going to be hosting two great Pub Nights: Jan 5th, 6-8pn Canon EOS C300 Pub Night (Beer & Pizza) Jan 25th, 6-8pn Sony F65: True 4k and Beyond Pub Night (Beer & Pizza) RSVP: events@rule.com

Sony Steps Up Manufacturing After Pre-Orders Land F65 4K Camera in U.S. Top 200 | Carolyn Giardina | Hollywood Reporter If you thought the Canon C300 was expensive, then don't even look at this baby, which costs $65,000: Sony plans to begin shipping the camera to customers in early January and started to take pre-orders in September. Kanemura said US-based resellers of the F65 would include AbelCine, BandPro and Rule Boston Camera. Sony's F65 Camera Get First Shoulder Rig | HD Magazine SHAPE of Canada has developed a shoulder rig for the F65 ; how much does that thing weigh? - 35 pounds! There's a short teaser video: SHɅPE WORLD PREMIERE F65 TEASER | SHAPE | Vimeo THE SONY FS100: A LIVED IN REVIEW | El Skid | Wide Open Camera After spending some months with the NEX-FS100 , El Skid offers his thoughts: It really is that kind of camera, on the one hand infuriating, on the other hand, just brilliant. Funnily enough though, all those reasons that bugged the hel...

SECAUCUS, NJ (December 12, 2011) – Panasonic today announced pricing and availability for its latest professional 3D camcorder, the HDC-Z10000 , delivering in December at a suggested list price of $3500. The Z1000 achieves the industry’s nearest close-up of approximately 17.7 inches (45cm) for a twin-lens 3D camcorder, while maintaining an equivalent 32mm wide angle of view. It records close-up images that would be conventionally difficult to capture in crisp detail. The Z10000 is Panasonic’s first integrated twin-lens 2D/3D camcorder that is fully compatible with the AVCHD 3D/Progressive standard. Based on the AVCHD format, which offers high quality, efficient compression and excellent compatibility, this new standard has been upgraded to AVCHD 3D, which uses MVC (Multiview Video Coding) to record and play 3D images via the Frame Sequential Method (each frame is full resolution). AVCHD 3D/Progressive is the latest format in the 3D domain and assures frame-by-frame beautiful resul...

BTS Of Reverse Parthenogenesis | Wide Open Camera | YouTube A short video where Jared Abrams shows the lighting setup they are using for a scene. Phantom Flex Test Shot - 2000 FPS - ISO 1250 | Tom Guilmette | Vimeo Tom has posted a very short video shot with the Phantom. at 2,000 fps. The explanation is well worth reading: The set we were on was huge. That meant a large area had to be lit. I asked the DP to use large wattage lamps to avoid 60 Hz flicker in the high speed footage. I also wanted plenty of room to work. Even in front of the key source. We had a 3 ton grip truck. The main key source were two nine lights camera right through silk. The fill was camera left and consisted of a 5k and 2k through silk. An EF 70-200 f/4L IS II in Mid January? [CR1] EF 35 f/1.4L II & EF 24-70 f/2.8L II | CanonRumors There are reports that Canon will be updating several lenses in the springtime. You just have to wait until CES to find out (CES runs January 10 - 13) I'm mos...

In a recent post I Don’t Hate Stereoscopic Films , Alexis Van Hurkman makea an interesting defense of 3D films. Firstly, he takes apart the argument that 3D adds nothing to narrative story telling by wondering what cinemascope adds to narrative: Now, I’m not saying there aren’t cinematic advantages to be mined from the different shot compositions that widescreen allows. However, plenty of spectacular films have been made without it... Then acknowledging there are good examples ( Hugo ) and bad ( Clash of the Titans ) of 3D, he also lists the drawbacks: I’ll be the first to say that the reduced light output in projected 3D venues is depressing, and the reduced and shifted color that results saddens my colorist’s eye. Similarly, I don’t wear glasses in my everyday life, and I’m not terribly thrilled at having something sitting on the bridge of my nose in the theater. But then he gets to the most interesting argument: Rudolph Arnheim, an early film critic and theorist, was a well-docu...

F3 - C300 - 1D side by side | Mario Feil | Vimeo Mario posts another short video featuring the Canon C300 , this time showing how it compares to other cameras shooting some different scenes. We put up a simply light setup, didn't change anything and just switched the cameras. 1Dmk4 - Cinestyle C300 - Canon Log F3 - basic PP You can also now download some of the MXF files from Nino Leitner's article: UPDATE – MXF files available for download! Philip Bloom, Seeing RED! | Steve Hall | Blog Philip's return of his RED Epic  continues to percolate around the web: He does not have a C300(yet) and he only had a brief look at the camera in a coffee shop. so to say that he is promoting it is crazy (I read this on the gh2 hack forum ) If canon wanted him to promote their camera, wouldn’t the logical thing be to ask him to make one of the short films for its big release???? Clean those Adobe Media Cache Files | Scott Simmons | ProVideoCoalition If you're not caref...

Canon EOS C300 – Review & short film | Nino Leitner | Blog Mario Feil and Nino Leitner got to spend a weekend with the Canon C300 , and they've posted the video, and Nino has written about the experience very extensively: ...from the first time you hold in your hands you realise here is a camera company who actually talked a lot to filmmakers when designing it and that resulted in a very natural and ergonomic device. (E.g.: take only the fact that there are 4 record buttons on this small camera body, and a lot of assignable buttons for all sorts of functions …) The video is here: 13:59 | Mario Feil | Vimeo Why I love the RED Epic and why I don’t have one anymore | Philip Bloom | Blog A few days ago Philip tweeted that he'd gotten rid of his Red EPIC , but he didn't go into the details. Yet clearly there was some story there, and now he's been prodded into explaining what happened; instability, fan boys and poor customer relations drove him away: This pers...

FDTimes December Issue 45 Ready | Film & Digital Times The December issue of Film & Digital Times is now available and covers: Cover Story: Canon’s new Cinema EOS System and C300 35mm Camera ZEISS Compact Primes, Compact Zoom, Anamorphic Lenses The Math of 4:3 and 16:9 Anamorphic Cinematography ARRI Alexa Studio and a whole lot more... Photoshop Hidden Gem: Editing Video in Photoshop CS5 Extended | YouTube A short introduction to using Photoshop to manipulate video. Get creative with your digital video using the Motion workspace in Photoshop CS5 Extended. Make basic adjustments to color balance, tone, curves, and more. Or experiment with one-of-a-kind video-editing features including lens corrections and the ability to apply stunning, hardware-accelerated effects filters with the Pixel Bender plug-in. Logic Pro and MainStage come to Mac App Store | Christopher Breen | MacWorld Apple is now selling Logic Pro through the Mac App Store, and it's now priced ...

Today, John Carr gave a free online webinar " How Adobe Production Premium CS 5.5 handled the cutting edge demands of Vincent Laforet's short film Möbius ." For those that don't know, this film was shot using the Canon  C300 , so I tuned in as much for that, as to find out the details of how he was using Adobe Production Premium . Fortunately, as someone transitioning back to Premiere after years with Final Cut , I found the presentation on working with the Creative Suite informative, as there wasn't really a whole lot to learn about working with the C300 , other than: The C300 uses the same file format as existing Canon cameras, so Premiere Pro had no problems recognizing and working with the files. Though the camera has XLR audio inputs, they recorded (and slated) the audio separately, and then synced the audio manually in Premiere . They decided to go external for a number of reasons, the primary one being logistics; for several scenes the sound guy was...

The RED EPIC will be the subject of the last Learning Lab of the year at Rule Boston Camera : EPIC OVERVIEW WITH DAVE(2) Join us for an EPIC event with award-winning Director of Photography David Kruta and Rule's resident RED expert Dave Kudrowitz who will share their experience with the powerful 5k full-sensor RED EPIC including recently-shot footage, tech aspects & More. WEDNESDAY DEC 14 10am - 12 noon RSVP: events@rule.com

The Music Licensing Chickens Have Come Home to Roost in Wedding and Event Videography | Ran Dawson | Dare Dreamer An interview with Joe Simon who got sued after a wedding video he made using copyrighted music came to the attention of the music label: But the letter that came through and they wanted a lot of money for damages, to the tune of $150,000 for one song. If that didn’t scare you straight I don’t know what would. I spent the next month or so going back in forth with the label to reach a settlement, it was a huge stress on my business and my life and I would never wish this on anyone else. I can’t say what we settled for but it looked like this $XX,XXX , which is a LOT of money for a small business. AE I Owe U: 10 Basic Ways ‘After Effects’ Saves Editor’s Lives pt. 1 | Eric Wise |  Splice Vine First explaining that it took a long time to become comfortable with After Effects, Eric gives the reasons why a video editor should be using After Effects : 3. BETTER KEYING...